"Is that dog sanitary?" Kramisha asked.

"Damien says that a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's," Jack said, patting the big yellow Lab on her head.

"We ain't humans," Kramisha said. "So could you please keep her big wet nose off the merchandise?"

"Fine. But try to remember that she's been through a trauma and her feelings are easily hurt."

While Jack pulled Duchess over to him and had a very serious conversation with her about keeping her nose off things, I stared at the piles of stuff. "Huh. Who knew all this was here?"

"Aphrodite," Kramisha said as she filled our arms with terry cloth. "She paid for it. Or her mama's gold card money did. You wouldn't believe all the stuff you can order from Pottery Barn if you got unlimited credit. It's made me decide once and for all on my future career."

"Really? What do you want to do?" Jack asked. Duchess sitting politely beside him, he held his arms out to be filled with towels and robes.

"I'm gonna be an author. One of those rich ones. With an unlimited gold card. Do you know people act different to you when you got you some serious credit?"

"Yeah, I guess. I have seen store people kiss the Twins' butts," Jack said. "Their families have money, too." He whispered the last part like it was a big secret, which it wasn't. Everyone knew the Twins' parents were rich. Okay, not Aphrodite rich, but still. They'd bought me boots for my birthday that cost almost $400. That's definitely rich to me.

"Well. I decided I like me some butt-kissing. So I'm gonna get me some. Okay, that's enough stuff. Come on. I'll walk partway back with you, but when we get to my room, I'm crashing. Jack, you can find the way back to the showers, can't you?"

"Yep," he said.

We walked down the tunnel, following it as it curved to the right. The next blanketed doorway we came to was covered with a shimmering strip of purple silk.

"This here's my room." Kramisha saw me staring at the amazing material masquerading as a door, and she smiled. "It's a curtain from Pier One. They don't deliver, but they do take unlimited gold cards." "It's a great color," I said, thinking how moronic it was for me to be imagining booger monsters in every shadow when the place had been Pier One?decorated.

"Thanks. I like me some color. It's an important part of decoration. Wanna see my room?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Definitely," Jack said.

Kramisha looked from Jack to Duchess. "She potty trained?"

Jack bristled. "Of course. She's a perfect lady."

"She better be," Kramisha grumbled, then she pulled the curtain to the side and made a graceful flourish with her free hand. "You may enter my space."

Kramisha's room was about twice the size of Stevie Rae's. She had two lanterns and a dozen scented candles lit, which gave the fresh paint smell a hint of citrus. She'd obviously recently painted the round cement walls a bright lime color. Her furniture was dark wood--bed, dresser, nightstand, and bookcase. She didn't have any chairs, but piled around the room were huge satin pillows in bold purples and pinks, which matched the linens on her bed. On said bed were half a dozen books, with bookmarks in them or lying open, like she was in the middle of reading all of them at the same time. I noticed that they, along with the books in the bookcase, had Dewey Decimal stickers on their spines. Kramisha noticed me noticing.

"Central Library downtown. They stay open real late on weekends."

"I didn't know the library let you check out this many books at the same time," Jack said.

Kramisha fidgeted. "They don't. Not technically. Not 'less you do a little this and a little that with they minds. I'll give 'em back soon as I can get to Borders and buy my own," she added.

I sighed and added "committing library theft" to the list in my head of things the red fledglings needed to be encouraged to stop doing, and as I made the mental addition I also chastised myself. Kramisha definitely looked guilty about ripping off library books. Would a kid who still had monstrous tendencies be worried about petty theft? No, no, hell no, I told myself, automatically wandering over to the bed to read some of the titles. There was a huge copy of the complete works of Shakespeare, as well as an illustrated hardback of Jane Eyre, which was piled on top of a book called The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee. There was also a hardback edition of Dragon-flight by Anne McCaffrey lying beside Thug-A-Licious, Candy Licker, and G-Spot by an author whose name was blazed as Noire. Those three books were open with their extremely nasty-looking covers spread wide. Totally curious, I put my pile of towels down on the bright pink bedspreaded bed, picked up Thug-A-Licious, and began reading at the open page.